


Communion Wine

by burkesl17



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 09:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11377767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burkesl17/pseuds/burkesl17
Summary: After the events of Unholiest Alliance, Barba joins Carisi in the church and they talk about faith, the lack of it and drinking.





	Communion Wine

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains discussion of past-child abuse, perhaps slightly more graphically than is typical for the show.
> 
> I've just fallen into a SVU and Barisi hole, and haven't been able to get this idea and collection of head canons out of my mind since watching Unholiest Alliance. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> With thanks to Mikimoo for beta reading.

Carisi didn’t open his eyes until he heard slow, heavy steps walking up the aisle of the church.

They stopped just behind him and he carried on praying. The person behind him shuffled and he finished the prayer before turning to look at who it was. 

“Barba?”

“Carisi.”

They looked at each other awkwardly and Carisi asked slowly, “Are you here to pray?”

“Ah, no.” Barba shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “This case seemed to hit you pretty hard.”

“Yeah, yeah it did.” Barba nodded and looked up at the altar with a bitter look on his face. It was the first time Carisi had ever seen him look awkward. “How about you?”

“Me?” Barba shrugged. “The church and I parted ways a long time ago.” He looked back at Carisi. “But you’re a good Catholic. And I know Rollins and Tutuola are good people, but they aren’t religious. I thought you might…want to talk to someone who got it.”

He nodded and couldn’t help but be amused by how uncomfortable Barba looked, his shoulders hunched forward and rocking on the balls of his feet.

“Being here’s causing you physical pain isn’t it?”

A quick smile flashed across Barba’s face for a second. “A little bit.”

He sat down next to Carisi and leant back against the bar, kicking his feet out. It was completely sacrilegious and also so him, the same sort of pose he’d fall into at his office, his feet up on the desk.

“So, you want to talk?”

“Nah.”

“Oh.” Barba looked a combination of relieved and affronted and Carisi nudged his shoulder slightly. 

“I’ve talked to God. There’s a lot I don’t like about the church, and a lot I don’t like about this case. But my faith?” He pressed his hand against his chest. “That’s in here, and this might have shaken it, but it can’t break it.”

Barba nodded and tapped his fingers on the step. Carisi couldn’t help but ask, “So, why did you part ways with the church?”

“You really want to know?” 

He wanted to know everything about Barba. Why he became a prosecutor, or further back, why he chose law. How he looked when he came, when he was being pleasured. Even more damning, how he looked in the morning when he was barely waking up. How to earn more of the darting quick smirks and smiles that occasionally lit up his face.

He just said, “Yeah, I do.”

Barba shrugged and stared up at the ceiling, before saying, “I got old enough to start going around the city at weekends. I saw other people…people who weren’t Christian. And I was being told anyone who didn’t believe in the Catholic Church was going to hell.”

“I don’t believe that, different ways of getting to God are still…”

“Studying comparative theology 101 now?”

Carisi frowned at him and Barba sighed, possibly slightly apologetically and carried on. “But I knew people from that church who didn’t deserve to go to heaven. And then I started to doubt, and then I didn’t believe at all.”

It wasn’t that different a story to many others Carisi had heard before, but there was something tight in Barba’s voice and he was staring right down the aisle as if he was seeing somewhere else entirely.

He didn’t want to know the answer to this, but he’d been a detective too long and he knew, just knew, from the look on Barba’s face and the tightness in his voice that he had to ask. “Did you know anyone?”

“Know anyone?”

“Who was hurt by people in the church.”

In the silence that followed Carisi felt his heart start to break. Then Barba said, “Not like those girls were.” He sighed and leaned back, “I haven’t told anyone about this for years.”

You’d have thought he’d be good at this, would know how to handle disclosures and know what to say, but in the face of Barba of all people being about to tell him something terrible, he could hardly bear the idea of listening to it. He wanted to reach out, but wasn’t sure whether Barba would welcome it and instead clenched his hands into fists.

“All the kids knew about the priest. Once you reached about ten you didn’t want to be alone with him, or he’d try and grope you.”

“That’s horrible.” He knew what the answer was of course, but he had to ask. “No one did anything?”

“Of course not.” Barba looked over at him and his lips quirked up slightly. “Until I did.”

“Of course you did, Counselor.” Sonny looked at him and despite how grim the conversation was, allowed himself to smile.

Barba straightened himself up and carried on.

“I was an altar boy.” He glanced over at Carisi as if he was daring him to say something, but Carisi just nudged his shoulder again and said, “So was I.”

“I’m shocked. Anyway, I kept out of his way most of the time, but one night I couldn’t avoid it and was in the church late. I turned around and he was standing there with his cock out.”

“Jesus!” Carisi blurted out, and Barba deliberately glanced up at the crucifix behind them and shot him an amused look. “And the lightning misses you once again.”

“Do you…” It was so hard to ask. “What did you do?”

“He told me to tug it. Something about how it wouldn’t be a sin with him and I just felt so…so angry. That he thought he had the right. So I went over and,” he smirked, “tugged it harder than anyone had tugged it before. And squeezed. And then when he dropped to his knees and screamed I kicked him in the balls.”

Carisi stared at him for a moment and said, “You didn’t? Seriously?”

“Seriously? I did. And then I told him if he ever tried to touch me again, or I heard about him touching any other kids, I would tell everyone I knew about what happened. I wouldn’t have of course, but he didn’t know that.”

His lips were twitching and it wasn’t funny at all, but suddenly they were both laughing and it was a horrible story but he was desperately relieved it wasn’t anything worse. 

“I could never have done that,” Carisi managed, suddenly sobering up. “I just…if a priest had asked me something like that? I don’t know…I don’t know what I’d have done, but I wouldn’t have stood up to them like that.”

Barba smiled at him, softer than Carisi thought he ever had before. “That’s why we do what we do, Carisi. For all those kids who can’t kick a priest in the balls.”

They started laughing again and Barba stood up and held out his hand. “Are you ready to get out of here?”

Their hands touched as Carisi stood up and he felt it through his whole body. He couldn’t drop his eyes from Barba’s, and he saw Barba breathe in sharply. Their hands parted slowly and he wasn’t sure if he was right, but it felt like Barba’s fingers lightly, just for a second, stroked against his palm.

He looked away, it was suddenly too much and he’d never thought there was a chance that Barba might return this crush, but in that moment it suddenly seemed not just possible but likely.

They were so close the backs of their hands brushed as they walked down the aisle together, sending shivers through him. 

“What happened to him? The priest?”

Barba shrugged. “He smoked heavily, these disgusting, cheap cigars. I can still remember exactly how they smelled, the stench clung to the robes, his office, even the confessional. I did look him up when I first started working as a prosecutor. He fit the profile of how the church handled paedophile priests, he moved around between parishes a lot. But…” He shrugged, they’d reached the door and Barba pushed it open. “Lung cancer killed him three years before that.” He nodded up at the statue of Jesus hanging on the wall. “He’s the only chance of justice, if there’s any truth in what the church says at all.”

“I’m sorry.”

The door slammed behind them and Barba seemed to lean on it heavily for a moment, before saying, “It was a long time ago.”

“That why you became a prosecutor?”

Barba’s lips twitched up into a half smile again, “Oh you won’t get that out of me without a drink.”

There was, perhaps just a hint of a question in his words. His eyes were dark under the street lights and it was completely deniable, but it opened the door and Carisi took a step closer. Barba didn’t move backwards and Carisi felt hope blooming as he said, “Would you like to get a drink?” And then, because he could only be smooth in his dreams, he blurted out, “With me?”

The moment stretched out and Barba took a moment before answering. “One drink is fine. Two, no one could have a problem with. Three, three drinks can be a lot of fun. But if we don’t stop having drinks, then it creates problems, we have to disclose, I can’t prosecute cases you’re the lead detective on…”

Carisi snorted, “I’m not the lead detective on any cases.”

“You will be soon.” 

The confidence warmed him right through and he looked over at Barba’s face as they started to walk away. And the spark of hope bloomed into something more.

“That wasn’t a no.”

“It was…raising possible objections in advance.”

“Well, I’m overruling those objections.”

They’d reached a bar, and Carisi grinned as he opened the door and noise and light spilled out. 

“Have a drink with me.”

He held out his hand and Barba very slowly reached out his own and took it.

“This is possibly a terrible idea.”

“It’s possibly a fantastic one.”

Barba was starting to smile again, just slightly as their fingers tangled together. 

“Alright then, Carisi. Drinks.”

He pushed past Carisi into the bar, his arm brushing across Carisi’s chest and his eyes not leaving his face until the very last second, when they dropped to his lips. Carisi enjoyed watching him too, and the buzzing anticipation across his skin, but just before he followed him in he quickly turned and nodded his thanks at the church and God for this bright spot of light amongst all the ugliness. Inside, Barba was waiting for at the bar. Not quite smiling, but with warm eyes and Carisi shrugged off the last of the day’s sadness as he joined him.


End file.
